The RDW from the locsite rdw option follows the RDW specification in the
DFSMS Using Datasets manual.
The last 2 bytes in the RDW are used for spanned records i.e. VBS, but
FTP reassembles spanned records into a single record. They do adhere to
the spanned record format, i.e. the last 2 bits of the 3rd byte are zero
which indicates a complete record.
IBM also has another format for variable records used by the z/OSMF REST
API and ZOWE. The first 4 bytes are the length, i.e. the first 2 bytes
are zero for your typical MVS dataset.
I don't know much about VM formats, RDH seems reasonable for a 2 byte
field. Maybe Record Length Halfword/RLH, given it is only the length
without the other fields? Or you could model it on dos2unix and call it
mvs2cms or similar?
On 26/11/2025 9:25 am, Paul Edwards wrote:
...
What I'd like to know is - is there a formal name already for
the RDH length format? If not, is RDH reasonable, or is there
a better suggestion? It may be considered too simple/obvious
that it was just called a "length indicator" rather than being
formally named. I'd like a semi-formal name, so that I can
call my utility RDW2RDH.C instead of rdw_to_length_indictator.c
Thanks. Paul.
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Andrew Rowley
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